The Blog Heard 'Round the World

Okay, well France is around the world, right? A Flickr observer messaged me in French to ask if he/she could put my Mona Lisa card above on her blog. So, naturally, I was delighted and was able to suss out what was being asked, and peck out a passable "tres bien, merci." So, a little college French finally pays off after how many years?

Turns out the blog is dedicated to Mona-philes who alter art with the famed one's face. A quick visit to http://papou.blog.lemonde.fr/ will turn up Mona in The Scream, The Kiss, cross-eyed, well-endowed, smoking, biker chick and much more.

My card even got a couple of comments, which I had to resort to Google translate. Apparently, one reader thought Mona looked a little sad for a greeting card. Apparently, some people believe Mona can have different expressions- what a concept!

In any event, Mona also has her US followers, with a Flickr group dedicated to "jocondophiles" as well. A trip to http://www.flickr.com/groups/manyfacesofmonalisa/, to which I already belonged, will give you Mona as E.T. (my new fave), Mona as Robocop and Mona as a Bond girl. The group's current contest is to place Mona squarely in the middle of Mardi Gras. This happens to work well for me, since I am hostessing a fat book page swap for Chubbyville http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chubbyville/ in February with the Mardi Gras theme. So Mona will get a workout. Hmmmm....Mona in Flashdance....yet another idea. Poor girl! Was she smiling or smirking?

By the way, my card was made by stamping a Tim Holtz image of Mona onto a transparency and affixing that with brads to a piece of background paper with another piece of paper with the word "create" and typewriter key stickers to spell "art." Merci beaucoup.

The 4 x 4 Friday Theme is the Always Popular Miss Mona Lisa

The theme for 4 x 4 Friday http://4x4friday.wordpress.com/ is Mona Lisa, always a fun countenance to work with. Leonardo obviously thought so, and she's endured for about 500 years-pretty popular, I'd say. I rubber stamped her on a transparency and mounted that over patterned paper. I found the word "create" already in funky type and added the typewriter key stickers. You can follow the link above to see interpretations from all over the world.

This is about all the art that got done this weekend as I had to do some actual Christmas shopping. I also packed up boxes for swaps with Miss Vicky http://www.cut-it-up.com/ and Linda J for our Blythe swap. She has a wonderful blog at http://adventuresofmolli.blogspot.com/. Her Blythes, Molli and Zelda, went shopping for mine, Lilly and Maggy. More at http://bly-me.blogspot.com/.

Now back to the studio for me. I have a project due tomorrow for Shabby Cottage Studios. http://www.shabbycottagestudio.com/. Go check them out- the design team is busy making samples of something cool you can buy to alter.

P.S. Here's a weird thing: My 17-year-old cleaned his room today- sweeper, dust rag, the whole thing, even the feather duster. Is he sick? I wondered. But no, his girlfriend was there directing the show. How cute and wonderful. I was so glad she found the stray laundry behind the dresser, too! Hopefully, he won't do that again.